I'll start.

NIN- The Downward Spiral. What else doesn't sound dated seventeen years after its release?

Tool - Lateralus. Elite.

this

metallica - black album

cant deny it.

Anything Fugazi sounds awesome.

Nevermore - Dead Heart in a Dead World

Opeth - Watershed. Squishiest mix ever.

Metallica - Load and Reload.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Street Survivors. 34 years old, still sounds fucking awesome.

Porcupine Tree - In Absentia. Don't like the music as much as Deadwing, but the production is dead nuts on to how that band should sound IMO.

STP - Core. Best snare ever.

Sounds like a real band.

My tastes are screwy. I tend to like things not that sound 100% good, but that sound uniquely screwy in some way.

For just general overall productions that i like, the last couple Fugazi records, i thought really came together best from a recording standpoint. They are simple clean, recordings, but not too clean.

I guess it depends on what you are looking for. For instance, Fugazi records just sound to me "like a rock band should". There isn't much crazy or fancy going on, aside form some interesting drum overdubs here and there, and some random musique concrete sorts of structures on the inbetweens. The songs themselves are just solid and not missing anything, also while not possessing anything annoying.

To me, that is perhaps mostly and most simply what i consider good production: possessing nothing sonically that i hate.

So i can really enjoy something that is slammed and compressed to shit(like for instance ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead records, which are slammed most brutally), if it i feel it is done nicely(though they have uploaded far too low a bitrate here to tell much how it really sounds) :



...and i can really enjoy something that is lo-fi and wretched(Guided By Voices=one of my favorite production styles ever on their earlier stuff), as long as it sounds good at it(to me, though again, youtube is no decent way to hear what it sounds like):



...and i can really enjoy some clean wide-open natural sounding stuff when it suits: (courtesy dan newholland's poast in a recent HC thread) :



Basically, as long as it sounds unique in some way and i don't hate something specific about it, i will tend to like it.

Whether it is the Pixies' Trompe Le Monde(which is kind of a fucked up sounding record, in a few different ways)

...or whether it is Boys Life's Departures & Landfalls(which has some strange ass drumsounds(like 100% roomsounds sorts of stuff, kind of missing several elements of the drumkit - sometimes that is what works!) and a ridiculously hyped bass guitar resonance on it that sticks out sorely and is great)

...or whether it is the Zombies Odessey And Oracle(one of those classic sixties 'proper studio' records, amazing songs with big sounds into beautiful gear)

...or whether it is something so good it is a cliche like The Beach Boys Pet Sounds(songs so well put together that you actually hardly notice that the thing was also recorded perfectly)

...or even whether it is something like Depeche Mode's Violator(a synth record that seems to be missing any sort of sawtooth synth at all! Practically all squarewaves, and maybe no cymbals either?)

... it goes on and on.

The main thing (for me) is that the song material has to start out great, and then whatever should be done to treat it, is done. Or whatever shouldn't be done, is not done. So i hardly make any distinction at all between the way Sebadoh III was recorded and sounds, and the way Abbey Road was recorded and sounds. They both are perfect, in my opinion.


again with the fucked up youtube quality though:


(I know youtube is all wrong for this type of thread, but i just listed so many different types of things, i felt some sort of examples should be there. Otherwise i wouldn't expect anyone to ever hear most of it. )

I would say DM's Ultra, Queen's Night at the Opera, DSOTM, Sgt Pepper's for 4 tracks is ridonkuless.

Additionally, the production on Appetite for Destruction is pure 80s rock perfection as far as I'm concerned. It's not as cheesy as most hair metulz, and again it sounds like an asskick rawk band.



Oh I fucking love this song The rest of their stuff is a bit meh though. I think our production tastes are pretty similar, I don't like things that sound too polished - I would rather it sound like a real band playing. A lot of it is in the drums and bass for me, if they sound natural and "woody" (for lack of a better term) then the rest all tends to fit into place nicely. Quite ironically whenever I record something I try to make it sound as polished, loud and clean as I can with my somewhat limited skillset

Cliche, but it needs to be said.



I really like the production of this album.



Great everything.





I really like both Blood Mountain's and Crack the Skye's production especially.



Again, cliche as fuck, but gotta admit, drums, vocals, guitars, everything sounds fucking amazing on this record.



Just because I love the raw, filthy stoner vibe this album's production gives off. It just makes it sound like four dudes getting stoned as fuck, and just jamming a song, which is fucking sick.





Fuckin' classics, Tomorrow Never Knows was so far ahead of it's time, it's not even funny.



This and Aoxomoxoa are my favorite Dead studio album. But I think this one has great production especially.



Again, my favorite Dead live album.

See, when I replied to this thread I started thinking of all the albums whose production I love, not because of their technical perfection but because of the inherent character of the recording. I opted for my version of 'perfection' because the list goes on and on for 'character' productions, and is probably chock full of things people can't stand.

But you fucks done started with it anyway.

So here goes.

If it sounds good, it is good. Not everything needs to be all shiny. (IMO, this is killing metal with tons of vibe-less records.) And some of my favorites are things like NIN or Tom Waits that are shiny mixes of intentionally not-shiny sounds.

IMO, "perfection", is a moving target.

But i also cannot think of anything that i would consider both a good recording/production, AND not also a 'character' recording/production.

There are things that are recorded "nicely" i guess, but what does that descriptor mean at all, if you try to separate it from the end result, inclusive of all of the elements? What is a "nice" technique is going to change from source to source, day to day, minute to minute, performance to performance.

Cleanly recorded: shit, IMO, makes a shitty production/record. "Perfect" recording is useless all by itself. Anybody can learn it, it is basically just math and science, and "successful" and reproducible techniques are in most cases well established and well-known(see also: andy sneap forums). What brings a record above that level is where you get people fucking things up on purpose or by accident, in ways that purposefully or accidentally, benefit the end result. The individual character elevates the thing.

For instance, what separates the Beatles records, production-wise from all of the other records recorded at Abbey Road Studios? Or the other records produced at Abbey Road by George Martin? Same equipment, techniques, and locations, same quality of technical production. Or of all of the other records recorded at the big LA studios, with the same studio musicians, as Pet Sounds?

The best records have something more, and it improves the production quality above what is already "perfect" from a general sources/mics/gear/mixing standpoint. The extra thing is in fact, in my opinion, that "character" element. And it is difficult to pin down. And it is practically impossible to reproduce. That is where the best sounds come from.

IMO.

Oh yeah, I agree with both of yous. Don't get me wrong.

Although I do feel like that there is a broad 'something' that many people equate with great production. An archetype, if you will. Generally speaking it'd be quite clean, with all frequencies represented, nothing overhyped and blotting out other things, and sounding like it was recorded with many expensive equipments. For that, Tool - Lateralus is as fine an example as I can think of.

Disintegration.
Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness.
The Fragile.

That is mostly a recording of drums though. IMO.

ACTUALLY, that brings up something that occured to me a while back: that what most folks are hearing when they refer to "excellent production" is in fact: drum clarity and fidelity. For instance, i would agree with you in general about the production of that one, BUT, do actually kind of hate the guitar sounds on it, and most of the Tool stuff. They often have excellent drumsounds though.

Ah yes, one of those most wonderful recoardings that: the louder you play it, the better it sounds.

(See also: Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space)

How this one passed by my mind I have no idea. Call it temporary insanitisation

Just noted this one. I actually find myself almost embarrassingly enjoying a lot more of this band than i expected to when i first heard of them. There is just something to the 'mood' of the production that i like. That and the smashy smashy cymbal sounds, they remind me of the Damned record Damned Damned Damned a bit, a sound i love.

But yeah, i like the selftitled one, the source tags & codes one(which another morning stoner lives on) and even the later stuff like worlds apart. The newest one was a bit crap though, and i vaguely recall deleting a couple others of their as well? They aren't, IMO massively consistently good i guess, but they do have some good stuff on all of those three records i mentioned, for my (probably questionable) tastes.

Ah I think I only downloaded the source tags one as it had that track on, and I don't know any of their others Maybe I'll get the self titled then.

edit - another one for the "good produced" list. Beastie Boys - Ill Communication, it sounds awesome



and maybe my favourite bassline at the minute